


To the Friends We've Lost, and the Friends We've Gained

by Sent2TheBeast



Category: Critical Role, Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 08:09:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15636675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sent2TheBeast/pseuds/Sent2TheBeast
Summary: Beau, Nott, and Caleb have a difficult time handling having their party members back after fighting Lorenzo.





	To the Friends We've Lost, and the Friends We've Gained

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing Critical Role fanfiction, but I had a lot of feelings about what this story line might do to the party dynamics. I tried to finish writing it before tonights episode but alas, I did not manage that. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

As much as they all wanted to pretend that everything was fine, that they’d remained unchanged in the aftermath of Lorenzo’s death, the Mighty Nein knew somewhere deep inside them that everything was different. 

 

Caduceus for one, had decided it was time to stop hiding. Decided that maybe there was life to be found amongst the living.

 

Beau, never being good about feelings, fucked them away...or at least she tried. She lay awake long after Keg had left, biting back guilt. Knowing that if things had been a little different she could have ended up on the other side of that fight.

 

Caleb– Caleb spent a good portion of the night awake, staring at his fingertips, mind calm for the first time in his life. Wounds finally subsiding to a dull ache thanks to the healing hands of some silly pastel firbolg they had stumbled across just a day ago. And how strange it was, truly, to consider someone he met so recently an ally. He wasn’t used to that, not anymore, not used to trusting so readily. 

 

And then there was Nott. Nott, who had begun to know love in a capacity beyond reliance. Who realized she’d found a family, a real one, that didn’t care about all the bad things she had done. About the bad thing she was by nature. Who was too exhausted to pretend she didn’t care anymore. Too relieved at having her family back to realize right away that she no longer felt the need to run. 

 

Caduceus had done everything he could, they all had, to help make Jester, Yasha, and Fjord comfortable. And no one wanted to admit how terrified they were of who they would find when the three of them finally came to consciousness. It was a sight to behold, if they were honest, trying to sneak three unconscious bodies into the least dubious inn in Shady Creek Run. Maybe one day, they’d look back on it with rose tinted glasses, find it funny or something; but no one was confident enough in the future to be certain. 

 

Beau had paid for the room, let Caleb and Nott put the three of them in bed. They’d waited patiently outside, Beau pacing to calm the nerves bubbling in her chest, eyes tracking Caleb’s every move as he muttered to himself in the dark, wandered around the corners of the room, wrapping it in silver wire. Safe. 

 

They pushed the anxiety and the fear of finding their friends missing once more far back into their skulls. Tried to suffocate them with booze. Dull thoughts led to dull pains, no sharp intentions, no stabbing wounds, no present concerns. It was not until the final notes had been played, the final top shelf liquor ordered, and the final candles burned to heaps of wax that the Mighty Nein would begin to let the tendrils of thought crawl back into their minds. Or rather, that the Mighty Nein would begin to listen to the whispers in their head that could no longer be drowned out in the silence and stillness of the night. 

 

Nott was the first. The first to let herself submit to the weaker parts of herself. The first to admit that she needed Jester, Fjord, and Yasha to make her better. The first to understand what the desperation crying out inside of her really meant. As Caleb slept, his steady breathing and the soft curvature of his shoulders bringing a spot of peace into Nott’s soul, she slipped out of the room. Her tiny hand, wrapped in blood soaked bandages, hiding the body she hated so much, lingered over the door. Afraid to be alone with the still unconscious bodies of her friends. But plied with alcohol and not wanting to lose any more faculty of herself, she screwed her courage to the sticking place and entered. 

 

It did not take long for Caleb to come running in, hair styled by his pillow, movements groggy but eyes alert and attentive for danger, hand out in front of him, as if he were expecting a fight. “Nott?” He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, surveyed the room, eyebrows knitting together in confusion. “What are you doing here?” 

 

“I couldn’t sleep,” she admitted sheepishly “What if they died in the night? What if they woke up to find themselves somewhere completely new? What if...what if we came to check on them in the morning and they were gone again?” 

 

“Nott,” Caleb sighed, lowering himself down to sit beside her. 

 

“I can’t lose them, Caleb,” Nott shot back, before Caleb could trip over his words “Not after…” The air grew thick between them. The realization dawning that after all the abuses their friends had suffered, they would have to break the news. The hole in their heart they wouldn’t admit was there, filled with a brief moment of pain, before they forced themselves out of it. Turning to look at Yasha’s sleeping form. 

 

“I know,” Caleb said firmly. He chuckled to himself in the darkness “I didn’t realize what they meant to me. Perhaps I still don’t. But I ran in here ready to fight for them...ready to fight without a thought about my own safety. What does that say?”

 

“That you’re changing, Caleb. You’re healing,” 

 

“Am I?” 

 

“I-” Nott looked at Caleb, and found herself unable to read the conflict in his face. “I don’t know, Caleb. I was just telling you things I thought might make you feel better.”

 

“Oh...okay,” Caleb responded after a moment, hyper-focused on the floor. 

 

“I mean...that seems like the kind of thing you’d have to determine for yourself, right?” 

 

“Ja,” Caleb whispered after a few moments of tense silence. Nott took the opportunity to crawl into Caleb’s lab, to wrap him in a hug, to settle in there, sharing his breathing patterns, trying to calm herself. 

 

“You motherfuckers picked the wrong fucking day to- oh,” Caleb and Nott spun around to see Beau standing in the doorway, staff in hand, they watched her posture change from battle ready to relaxed. Watched her shrink about an inch, the weight of the day finally taking its toll on her performative confidence. “Sorry, I uh- I was just getting up to...to pee and I heard voices in here, I thought…” 

 

There was a quiet understanding amongst all of them as Beau stood there, scratching absentmindedly at her staff. 

 

“Would you like to join us?” Caleb asked, gesturing to the spot at his side. 

 

“I don’t see why not,” Beau replied, shuffling over on bare feet. “It’s not like I was sleeping anyway,” Nott pretended she didn’t hear that part, but watched in awe as Caleb reached out awkwardly and patted Beau’s shoulder. 

 

It was comforting, the three of them realized, that they could sit together in silence, without anyone feeling obligated to break it. They listened for what felt like seconds and hours to the steady sound of breathing, and the gentle snores of the rescued and found. 

 

“You did a good job today, Caleb,” Beau said after a while. “I meant to tell you that earlier,” 

 

“Oh,” Nott did not need to see in the dark to know Caleb was blushing, she could feel him shrinking under the attention. “T-thanks, Beau...um, you-uh you too,” 

 

Beau smiled, it was a small thing, and far more natural in the dark when she thought no one could see. The conversation ended, and the three, leaning in a little closer for warmth, settled back into the routine of keeping watch. 

 

“This is kind of boring,” Nott said, after another gentle silence had passed. 

 

“I don’t know,” Beau’s voice was gruff “I think it’s…”

 

“Nice,” Caleb finished for her. “I think it’s nice,”

 

“I was going to say calming, but yeah, that’s probably better. We can go with that one,” Beau scratched at the back of her neck, where her hair was shaved short against her scalp.

 

“You know it’s funny,” Caleb started “Just a few weeks ago I would have dreaded a moment like this. Sitting up in the dark with strangers. Those nights at the beginning, when we didn’t have the money- well I still don’t but anyway –when we didn’t have the money to rent more than one room. I hated it. It made me feel like I was suffocating. But now...”

 

“I loved those nights,” Nott admitted, voice timid. “It made me feel like I was normal. Like I wasn’t some scary goblin that going to steal your things and eat your children. Like, I don’t know, like people cared,” 

 

“I loved it, too,” Beau huffed “You know I, uh, I’ve distanced myself from most people in the past. Pretended it added to my...mystery, but it felt good to be...like in a group,” she emphasized with her hands “or something,”

 

“Looks like you’ve got a party going on in here,” The honey-smooth voice of Caduceus Clay danced in their ears. 

 

“Did we disturb you Mr. Clay?” Nott asked. 

 

“Oh, no,” he smiled wryly. “Keg tripped on her way out, made a whole bunch of noise, it woke me up,”

 

Beau smirked proudly. 

 

“I tried to go back to sleep, but my conscious decided I should probably check on your friends here while I had some energy.” 

 

The three watched as Caduceus ambled up to the bed, towering over the sleeping forms of Jester, Fjord, and Yasha. Soft pink light flickered to life, shifting and curling around Caduceus’ fingers. Beau, never being keen with magic, marvelled to watch, as the light swirled above Jester’s head, danced on her horns, and settled in her chest. Watched with unblinking eyes as the light took the shape of a cherry blossom and then turned to sparkling dust, absorbing into her skin. Jester took a deep breath, still asleep for all the pain she’d suffered, but peace seeming to wash over her face. Caduceus did the same for Fjord and Yasha, before settling on the floor at Beau’s side. 

 

“Thank you, Mr. Clay,” Nott whispered after he had gotten comfortable. 

 

“Is this what you do in your free time?” Caduceus asked, not a hint of irony in his voice. “Seems...counterproductive,” 

 

“Seems like something that friends do,” Caleb said after a good long while. “Ja...friends,” Caleb muttered to himself, nodding as he tested the word. 

 

There was silence in the room once more, it started slow, the orchestra of breathing. A quiet trio, which turned after a few minutes into a quartet as Beau’s eyelids grew heavy, and she slumped against Caduceus’ arm. 

 

Nott accompanied soon after with gentle snoring, muted by the folds of Caleb’s jacket from where she was still nuzzled. Caduceus marvelled at the symphony unravelling before him. The deep breathing, the gentle snores, and the whispers from Caleb and he rocked himself steadily back and forth, back and forth, the wooden floor creaking a little under his movement. Caduceus waited until the whispers turned to silence, turned to muttering. Caduceus was used to living amongst the dead, and it struck him strange to learn that people could talk while they slept. 

 

He waited a while, surveying the sleeping bodies of these absurd and brilliant strangers that had stumbled into his dull and uneventful day and dragged him into a world of adventure. He was pretty clueless about most things concerning the living, but he found happiness in knowing that despite the way they walked through the world, here were a group of people that would die for eachother. A group of people that wouldn’t just walk away when things got tough. He’d lost his family, it had happened so slowly it took almost a decade for him to realize that so many of his kin had abandoned him for the sake of something more. But here these people were, having watched a member of their party fall, and to still go charging straight ahead into the breach, into certain death, and to win, against all odds. 

 

Caduceus gave the three of them a minute, to settle into their sleep, to let it take over their bodies before he carefully pried Beau off his arm, and shuffled back to his room. He returned not too much later with a couple of blankets, ripped from his bed, and from his pack, and placed them gently over their shoulders.

 

“Your necks are gonna hurt in the morning,” he said to himself, looking over the pile of adventurers, who were huddled up against each other in such a way that to find where one person ended and another began was nearly impossible. “But I suppose you make sacrifices for the ones you love,” he took a seat in the solitary wooden chair near the desk, leaning back so his head was against the wall. “I guess it’s my turn to keep watch,”

 

And keep watch he did. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Comments and critiques welcome, you can find me here or at fatal-vision.tumblr.com


End file.
